[0:11] All right, everyone is here
[0:12] and it is now just past six o'clock.
[0:14] So I will call to order this meeting of the
[0:17] Pittsford Town Board and I'll ask you to join me please.
[0:20] In the Pledge of Allegiance,
[0:24] I pledge allegiance to the flag
[0:26] of the United States of America,
[0:31] one nation under indivisible with liberty and justice.
[0:37] Thank you. I have just one announcement tonight
[0:40] and that is to remind people that this Saturday
[0:43] starting at 12 noon here on Main Street
[0:46] is the annual food truck and music fest.
[0:49] Our second and last of the bookend events
[0:53] for the summer season.
[0:56] Lots of food, lots of great music,
[0:58] and we invite everyone to come.
[1:01] It's always a good time, at least when it doesn't rain,
[1:04] and we'll keep our fingers crossed for this weekend.
[1:08] We begin tonight with two public hearings,
[1:13] so I am going to open public hearing number one,
[1:18] which has to do with amendment to incentive zoning
[1:22] for one 50 French Road to permit Lily Brook signage.
[1:26] This is to amend an incentive zoning resolution
[1:30] that was passed back in 2001,
[1:32] that rather unusually contained provisions for
[1:36] signage at the site that now has needed to change.
[1:40] So the hearing is open.
[1:42] Is there anyone here to speak on the subject
[1:44] of the incentive zoning change for one 50 French Road
[1:48] to permit the Lily Brook signage?
[1:56] No one. Do we have anyone weighing in by email?
[2:00] I have not. Okay.
[2:02] I will give you one more opportunity if there's anyone here
[2:05] who wants to speak on this subject.
[2:08] Seeing none the hearing's closed, we will now proceed
[2:12] with a public hearing for a vote on creating
[2:16] new 2027 refuse districts.
[2:19] These came in rather late.
[2:20] They are special circumstances is
[2:22] to create one new refuse district and to extend another one.
[2:26] Again, I will now ask if there is anyone here
[2:29] to speak on the proposed creation of the refuse districts.
[2:33] Sir, please tell us your name and go up to the podium.
[2:46] I'm Daniel Drake. I'm president of the
[2:49] Alpine Ridge Homeowners Association.
[2:52] I, we have the petition in and we want to thank the board
[2:57] and particularly Supervisor Smith
[2:59] and also Maureen Nicks for expediting this matter.
[3:03] I know it came in late,
[3:04] but there were circumstances beyond our control.
[3:09] I know the community in Alpine Ridge,
[3:12] everyone's excited about getting a refuse district.
[3:15] I haven't heard anyone in the community speak against it.
[3:20] So once again, I just want to thank the board
[3:22] for putting it on your agenda.
[3:24] Thank you. If you have any
[3:25] questions, I'd be happy to address them.
[3:29] Wonderful, thank you so much. Thank
[3:30] You.
[3:31] Is there anyone else who would like
[3:33] to speak on the subject of the
[3:35] proposed new refuse districts?
[3:39] Do we have any comments by email? I have none.
[3:42] Alright, I'll ask once again. Anyone else wish to speak?
[3:46] Seeing none, I'll close this public hearing.
[3:49] We will take up the, the vote on both of those subjects,
[3:54] but later on in the agenda, we have a presentation tonight.
[3:59] But first I wanna recognize a member of our village board
[4:03] of trustees, John Beck, who's with us tonight.
[4:05] John, good to see you. Who was asked to address the board?
[4:21] Good evening. I'm John Beck.
[4:22] I live at 62 State Street,
[4:24] but I'm here tonight as a village trustee
[4:27] and I just wanted to address the board about a statue
[4:30] that the village recently rented
[4:34] is a Frederick Douglas statue.
[4:36] And we went through a presentation
[4:39] and some discussions where the village rented this statue
[4:43] for a year's time.
[4:45] And there was a lot of discussion, a lot of input as to
[4:49] where we were gonna place the statute.
[4:51] And you know, there were several places mentioned that
[4:56] coincided with where Frederick Douglas May have spoken when
[4:59] he was here many, many years ago.
[5:03] And I know one of the spots
[5:04] that they looked at was over in the new Copper Beach Park,
[5:08] but we, we had a lot of discussion about,
[5:13] you know, permanency and,
[5:15] and like I said, the different locations.
[5:17] But at our meeting in August, I think it was August 11th,
[5:21] after the discussion we had that evening, I made a motion
[5:24] that the statue would be placed in the front lawn
[5:27] of Village Hall and
[5:29] that was voted on unanimously by the board.
[5:32] And I know there's been some communications back
[5:35] and forth between the village
[5:36] and the town requesting a potential
[5:40] to place it at Copper Beach,
[5:42] but I just wanted to clear that up tonight
[5:43] that the statue's going to be located on the front lawn
[5:47] of the village hall and
[5:49] that's its permanent location right now.
[5:52] And I don't know if there are any
[5:53] questions, comments, or concerns. Yeah.
[5:55] Are you here speaking on behalf
[5:56] Of, of the entire board of trustees or just
[6:00] I'm speaking to the vote that was unanimous
[6:03] by the village board because there were communications
[6:07] after the fact that led to confusion as to
[6:10] where the statute might be located
[6:12] and as to the permanency of it or if it was temporary.
[6:17] The motion you before the board? Yes, I am. They've
[6:20] They've authorized you to come here with your
[6:22] Statement?
[6:23] No, they haven't, but Okay.
[6:23] Also, the communications that were sent to the
[6:27] town were not authorized by the board either, so
[6:30] that's why I'm here tonight speaking as to what the
[6:34] vote was that evening.
[6:40] Thank you. Okay, John,
[6:41] Any other questions? No, I
[6:43] Question John, are you,
[6:45] is the village hosting it permanently in front
[6:48] of the village hall or
[6:49] Is it still renting right now?
[6:50] We, we, we voted back in the spring
[6:54] to rent it for a year for $5,000
[6:58] and we're going to place it for that year.
[7:01] The vote was to place the statue
[7:03] in front of the village hall.
[7:05] Thanks John. Okay,
[7:07] John, thank you very much.
[7:08] Alright, thank you. It helps clear up a lot
[7:09] of confusion. Thank you. Appreciate
[7:11] It.
[7:14] We will now have a presentation I'm very excited about
[7:19] recently, council member LER LeBlanc
[7:23] and I had the opportunity to meet with Bill Price
[7:27] of Reimagine Rock on the subject of some very interesting
[7:32] and useful ideas that they're coming up with
[7:35] and have worked on for housing development moving forward.
[7:40] And this dovetails very nicely with our
[7:45] new zoning code that we adopted about a year and a half ago
[7:48] because we have opened up the zoning to some new
[7:52] and different types of housing
[7:54] for new construction in Pittsford,
[7:56] protecting existing neighborhoods,
[7:58] but in places where something hasn't been built yet.
[8:01] And in many ways that's the easy part, changing the law.
[8:05] Then the idea is, well, how do we help encourage builders
[8:10] to want to come in and take advantage of some
[8:12] of these new opportunities?
[8:14] And that's where some of the ideas
[8:15] that we discussed come in.
[8:17] So with my own thanks to council member Satler LeBlanc
[8:20] for making the introduction between ourselves and Bill Price
[8:24] and Reimagine Rock, I'd like to introduce Bill Price
[8:27] to make our presentation.
[8:35] Good evening, Mr. Supervisor and members of the board
[8:37] and staff to the public.
[8:39] Welcome and thank you for the opportunity to present this
[8:45] idea that we have.
[8:47] With me tonight is Jim Yako.
[8:49] Jim is the CEO of Greater Rochester Association of Realtors.
[8:55] And let me, let me kinda start this with
[9:00] where did, where did this idea come from?
[9:02] This is reimagining our whole housing strategy
[9:07] in Rochester and the Finger Lakes region.
[9:11] Jim's organization covers a geographic area very similar
[9:16] to community design, Rochester,
[9:18] which is generally the Finger Lakes regional economic
[9:22] Development councils geographic area.
[9:25] So nine county area.
[9:28] Jim goes a little further almost over to Auburn
[9:30] and all the way down to the southern tier in the north, the
[9:36] New York state line, we do, we do as well,
[9:39] but we don't go quite as far east as you do.
[9:43] The other members of Reimagined Rock housing,
[9:47] in addition to community design, Rochester, the realtors,
[9:52] is the Mortgage Bankers Association as well
[9:55] as the Rochester Area Home Builders Association in 2023.
[10:01] That group, which works together fairly regularly on
[10:06] matters of housing, housing production, housing finance,
[10:11] anything to do with some of the, the laws
[10:13] or the regulatory processes involved in, in housing,
[10:18] they notice a substantial slowdown in housing production,
[10:24] home sales, rental properties being, becoming available.
[10:28] And they together wrote a white paper in 2023,
[10:32] I believe it was August.
[10:35] And then, and Jim has been a long time
[10:38] supporter of community design.
[10:39] Rochester came to us
[10:41] and said, can we put on a design workshop
[10:45] and really talk through these issues?
[10:48] And the, the thing that what we did was we said,
[10:53] let's involve everybody in that that's involved in housing.
[10:57] We had economic development agencies, we had towns
[11:00] not only elected officials,
[11:02] but town staff that handle application intake
[11:05] and, you know, site plan approval, subdivision
[11:09] bank financing, mortgage originators, appraisers,
[11:14] everybody in in involved, nonprofit,
[11:17] nonprofit organizations involved in housing.
[11:22] We came up, we sat around, we, we talked amongst
[11:26] like disciplines, and then we split up
[11:28] and talked amongst different disciplines at the tables,
[11:32] came up with 50 major prime idea primary ideas.
[11:37] They were filtered into 12 different categories.
[11:40] Those, those categories were things like finance,
[11:44] construction, technology, making, permitting, easier,
[11:50] state regulation, local municipal regulations.
[11:55] So then we, we ultimately ended up writing a paper
[11:59] based on everything we learned and some additional research.
[12:02] And that's what I would like to present tonight.
[12:07] Okay, so what, what is going on in the market?
[12:12] I mean, I'm sure everybody here, whether you're students
[12:16] and you've heard it at home or you know, within your family
[12:20] or anybody with elderly parents,
[12:23] that there is a housing crisis.
[12:25] We are not producing enough housing
[12:28] and we are not producing enough diversity of housing
[12:31] to meet the needs of the various age demographics
[12:35] across our community.
[12:38] Right now, we are only building one housing.
[12:41] There's only one housing unit permitted
[12:44] for every eight new jobs that are being created.
[12:48] We need to be building approximately one new housing
[12:52] or residential unit for every two jobs that are created.
[12:57] And we already know Monroe County Economic Development has
[13:01] told us we have at least 13,000 jobs
[13:05] on the books ready to come to Rochester
[13:07] and be created in the next three years.
[13:11] Our inventory of houses for sale is very low.
[13:16] We, we have less than a month supply that
[13:20] that can change month to month.
[13:22] But the typical inventory is about a four to six month
[13:27] inventory of houses available.
[13:29] We are, we're nowhere near that.
[13:31] That continues to cause problems with the bidding wars,
[13:36] the price, the increase in pricing just
[13:39] to get a, to get a house.
[13:42] So we have that problem.
[13:45] And then the cost mentioned previously
[13:47] that generally speaking,
[13:50] they're being sold at 16% over asking,
[13:54] I believe in the Brighton's and Pittsford's
[13:56] and Penfield, that number's much higher.
[14:00] So that 16% is kind
[14:03] of an aggregate number across the region.
[14:06] If we could proceed, there are some additional numbers that
[14:12] help define this crisis a little bit.
[14:15] And this, this is not numbers that are reflective
[14:20] of the city of Rochester or any one particular town.
[14:25] All of our communities are experiencing around these numbers
[14:29] where 30%, almost 31%
[14:33] of households are now cost burdened.
[14:36] That that term means that you are paying more
[14:40] in a mortgage or rent payment than 30% of your income
[14:45] used to be 26% was the benchmark
[14:48] of when you were gonna go get a mortgage.
[14:51] That's what you would apply for, is something in the range
[14:54] of 26% of your gross monthly income.
[14:59] Now renters are even higher cost burden.
[15:02] It's almost 46% just shy of 50% of renters
[15:08] are spending more than 26%.
[15:11] Am I saying that right? 27. Okay.
[15:14] 27% are spending more than half
[15:16] of their gross income on rent.
[15:19] 48% of increase in our,
[15:24] in our median home income,
[15:26] or I'm sorry, home price has gone from
[15:30] what it was in 2020.
[15:32] 2020 we are now at, it was around what,
[15:37] 230 we are now.
[15:39] I think it's closer to 270,000, 300,000,
[15:42] pushing 300,000 is the median home price.
[15:46] And $14,400 is essentially the gap between
[15:52] what lenders will approve versus
[15:55] what people actually can, can afford.
[15:57] There's a substantial gap in that initial assessment of
[16:02] how much you can, can pay.
[16:06] I had, I, I did wanna show another slide that is kind of,
[16:09] if you could advance before we get into this.
[16:13] There were, I, I did a, a slide that showed,
[16:17] this is from US Census Bureau that shows the number
[16:20] of people that migrate every day out of Pittsford
[16:25] to other places for their job.
[16:28] And the number of people res a number of people, workers
[16:32] coming into the town for their job.
[16:35] The number of people that commute into Pittsford on a daily
[16:39] basis is over 10,000.
[16:41] So it's 10,100.
[16:44] And this is in the American Sta
[16:49] American Community Survey of the US Census Bureau.
[16:52] It's a neat, neat way of seeing
[16:54] who's coming and who's going.
[16:56] So of workers in Pittsford,
[17:01] 13,000 leave Pittsford every day to go to their job,
[17:05] whether it's in Henrietta, Penfield, the city, wherever.
[17:09] And you can actually hit search on that is
[17:13] where are those people working so you can figure out,
[17:16] you know, where are they commuting every day, back
[17:19] and forth, and only 1300 people live
[17:23] and work in the village, or I'm sorry, in the town.
[17:27] So those are some pretty dramatic numbers.
[17:29] And when you start talking about who is it that we want
[17:33] to invite to live here, well, we want to invite the people
[17:38] that work here to potentially live here.
[17:41] Whether that's fires teaching, you know, people
[17:45] that work in some of our retail,
[17:48] but also the folks that are leaving every day.
[17:51] You know, can some of those jobs come back into the
[17:53] village and into the town?
[17:56] So that all plays into both your economic development
[18:00] strategy and your community development strategy.
[18:03] Looking to balance that much closer to a more even number.
[18:08] I mean, even if you tripled the number of people
[18:12] who will live and work here, would be a, a substantial
[18:16] sustainability solution,
[18:19] but also a much better economic situation for,
[18:24] for the town and the village.
[18:26] So when we wrote the book on this, we wrote
[18:30] what we call the white paper.
[18:31] It's not a book. We came up with four lenses.
[18:36] It's taking those 12 categories and 50 ideas
[18:39] and boiling it down to four
[18:41] and seeing if we can't solve, find a way to solve all
[18:45] of the ideas under four different lenses.
[18:49] The first one is to create a pattern book.
[18:52] A pattern book is to design houses
[18:57] that would fit the character of the village and the town.
[19:01] And these would be residential units that are single family.
[19:06] These are duplexes, triplexes, row houses
[19:11] and multifamily up to eight units.
[19:15] We are not talking about designing things
[19:20] that are 120 units.
[19:21] Those will always go before the planning board.
[19:26] They'll go before, you know, if necessary, the town board.
[19:29] But what we're looking to do is get buy-in.
[19:33] These, these residential units would all be vetted ahead
[19:36] of time by the town, by the town's planning board,
[19:41] a design review committee, historic preservation commission.
[19:45] We would encourage towns to review what we come up with
[19:49] and consider adopting those by right.
[19:53] So that if you said, okay, this, this house,
[19:57] this model would be brand new,
[19:59] but it looks like it could go anywhere in the town,
[20:03] we would accept this if it was put on a vacant lot.
[20:07] If somebody decided to take a large lot
[20:10] and split it, we would accept that being put in.
[20:14] The part that makes that faster is
[20:16] that it would've been adopted
[20:18] and codified into the town code.
[20:21] Therefore a builder, your mom or dad
[20:24] and uncle, a business owner can go pull a building
[20:27] permit and build that tomorrow.
[20:33] Architectural compatibility with the community, vetted
[20:37] by the community and modified as needed by the community.
[20:41] We will come up with the initial thoughts
[20:44] and the initial concepts,
[20:45] but they can be modified to meet the needs of each community
[20:49] manufacturing readiness.
[20:51] We want these particular designs to ultimately be dimension
[20:56] and sized to meet the dimensional requirements
[20:59] of manufactured housing.
[21:02] Manufactured means modular
[21:04] or penalized so that we can reduce the amount
[21:09] of time over onsite built.
[21:12] We are not by any means saying that it's only modular
[21:17] or panelized onsite.
[21:19] Stick built can still happen with these.
[21:24] The other is by having these by, right?
[21:28] If we had five towns in Monroe County that agreed to these
[21:33] with some modifications, then we know
[21:36] that there's gonna be a market for the, the re the more
[21:41] prog, the faster production.
[21:44] And then the banks
[21:45] and the lenders would be able to have financial products
[21:49] to pro to align with those new, those new homes.
[21:55] And this is why we had finance people in on this,
[21:58] as you know, hey, it's not easy
[22:01] to finance a duplex right now.
[22:03] It's easy to finance a detached single family house
[22:07] or a 60 unit multi-family.
[22:09] It's not so easy to, to finance some
[22:12] of these smaller products.
[22:16] The next lens is to take a look at
[22:22] housing from a more economic standpoint
[22:26] and start talking about the economics of housing.
[22:31] We talk about economic development of a community.
[22:33] We talk about how community development, basically your,
[22:37] your housing, your amenities, your, you know,
[22:42] your community services, all work, all work together.
[22:46] Too many times that all
[22:48] of our economic development folks will, will tell you
[22:51] we aren't doing enough community development planning
[22:54] with our economic development planning.
[22:57] We're out there getting jobs, bringing new business in,
[23:00] new industry in Webster, just got fair life.
[23:04] Webster's struggling to meet the demand for the housing
[23:08] that those jobs are creating.
[23:11] So this is, you know, the kind of thing that we have to kind
[23:14] of make sure we, we coordinate.
[23:17] You guys just did an update to the zoning code
[23:21] along Monroe Avenue.
[23:22] Bill is, there is, was it other, other places?
[23:25] The other places as well and different types.
[23:28] But for example, mixed use commercial
[23:29] and residential on the Monroe Avenue commercial
[23:32] Corridor.
[23:34] Some of the applications would, would align
[23:37] with this, some would not.
[23:39] You know, so you know how much of what happens on
[23:43] that corridor could be as of right build, you know,
[23:47] maybe some of the four to eight units if you
[23:49] chose to go that high.
[23:51] You know, there's certainly a lot of pavement out there
[23:53] that we could, we could fill up with mixed use.
[23:57] Let's go to our, our next, okay.
[24:01] Incremental development ecosystem.
[24:04] Incremental development means increasing the number
[24:07] of people who build.
[24:10] I think we could all mention, you know,
[24:11] who built the house we're in
[24:13] or you know, the five to eight different builders
[24:16] that come in to the town
[24:18] and, you know, routinely apply for subdivision
[24:22] or, you know, site plan approval.
[24:24] The idea here is to let you know smaller people
[24:29] who have an interest in it, have a family need
[24:33] to build something, have a need to expand maybe
[24:37] above their business, behind their business to
[24:41] increase the number of people building housing.
[24:45] Not just the guys that come in here.
[24:48] They, as we can see, we haven't been able to meet the demand
[24:52] with that, with that market
[24:55] or the non, the non-profits out there building
[24:58] affordable housing.
[24:59] We have not met the market demand.
[25:01] So we need to increase the number of people
[25:04] who are able to do the building.
[25:07] So, you know, we are looking at ourselves at community
[25:11] design helping with a kind of a bootcamp to teach people
[25:15] how to do development.
[25:17] There's lots involved, so you do need
[25:19] to teach 'em what's involved.
[25:22] We know the mortgage bankers are ready
[25:23] to really start talking about different financial tools
[25:27] and then also really look at land trusts
[25:30] and land banks as, you know, those that have a,
[25:35] a lot of different properties
[25:37] that are maybe available to build on.
[25:41] Can. Yeah, yeah.
[25:44] I just wanna point out the, the,
[25:46] this is really the secret sauce.
[25:47] Getting the incremental development, the small person
[25:51] involved in developing housing
[25:53] streamlines the whole process.
[25:54] It, I say all the time it's easier to find a hundred people
[25:56] to build one home than one to build a hundred homes.
[25:59] And then we go through this much lengthier approval process,
[26:03] but we have to give them some certainty.
[26:05] So the pattern book gives them some certainty
[26:07] that I can pick too close, that I can pick one
[26:11] of the designs and I know I can get a permit within a few
[26:14] days a week and then I can just get moving.
[26:17] The, the time involved in going through the 12
[26:19] to 18 month process we have right now is intimidating
[26:23] and it keeps people away.
[26:25] If we can get this group of incremental developers going,
[26:28] they tend to do infill
[26:29] and belt development, small scale build on vacant lots,
[26:32] build where there's infrastructure build
[26:34] where there's sidewalks and power
[26:35] and water brings the cost of the housing down without having
[26:39] to to go any great lengths on the quality of the housing.
[26:44] So we're trying to shave time, shave cost off of the cost
[26:47] of the housing and make it easy for the individual
[26:51] to be part of solving this crisis.
[26:57] And our, our last lens that we we looked at is
[27:03] really streamlining the approval process itself.
[27:07] I'm a 33 year veteran of the town
[27:10] of Brighton planning board.
[27:12] And I, I know both what the environmental review process
[27:17] and what the town permitting process
[27:23] does as far as slowing things down.
[27:26] The idea again is, you know, there's gonna be proposals
[27:30] that come in that are gonna need
[27:31] to go through the regular process.
[27:33] But what we would like to do is we'd, we'd like to see,
[27:37] you know, these BuyRight residential units approved
[27:41] at the town level
[27:43] and then codified, you know, so that we can take,
[27:46] I I think we could say, I,
[27:49] I know nationally if you take a typical subdivision
[27:53] or a typical mixed use project,
[27:55] you're actually looking at close to 33 months
[28:00] is the typical timeframe it takes to get approved.
[28:03] Now every project's different.
[28:07] Every, every town is different.
[28:09] Every state's environmental laws are different,
[28:12] but nationally that is the average.
[28:15] We say what we'd like to do is we'd like to take, you know,
[28:19] a six to 18 month process, which could be, you know,
[28:22] getting your duplex approved, getting a three, a three
[28:28] plex row house, you know, approved.
[28:30] We'd like to take that down to five to 10 days.
[28:34] We were originally more aggressive on that,
[28:37] but let's, if we can get this down to under a month,
[28:41] you know, we would, we, we could build a lot more.
[28:46] So I'd love to answer any questions.
[28:50] You all have a handout I'd like to point you to
[28:54] reimagine rock housing.org
[28:57] where the entire white paper sits.
[28:59] There's a, a lot more detail, a lot more examples in it.
[29:03] This is kind of a, a brief and a quick presentation.
[29:08] Love to answer any questions whether you have 'em now
[29:11] or, or later.
[29:14] You know, bill, one, one
[29:15] of the things I find most appealing in the,
[29:18] the concepts you're presenting is exactly
[29:20] what you have up in the screen right now that
[29:23] with pre-approval with designs in a planning book
[29:28] that you cut down on the time,
[29:29] which cuts down on the carrying cost.
[29:31] And just to be clear, so we,
[29:33] I'm looking at the line on your slide, 25
[29:36] to 45,000 saved per project.
[29:38] So if we were talking about a really big project, well
[29:40] that's not a lot, but we're talking about these smaller,
[29:42] we're talking about one-offs,
[29:43] we're talking about maybe the eight row houses,
[29:45] or actually in Pittsford it would be four
[29:46] because that's the, the limit.
[29:48] But you get the idea. Yeah.
[29:49] So that is a significant saving that could be passed along,
[29:52] Right?
[29:53] Yeah. The, and these may be conservative numbers again,
[29:58] if we get a, get ourselves to the point where, you know,
[30:02] more towns are, are buying into this
[30:04] and we can get some
[30:07] or all of that production, you know, so if we're saving time
[30:12] on the approval process, if we're saving money on the
[30:18] interest in taxes of carrying costs,
[30:21] and if we're saving time on site,
[30:24] we're we're building in a factory, we're bringing
[30:26] to the site, you know, town inspections become limited only
[30:31] to utilities
[30:32] and any penetrations through the slab,
[30:35] all the other inspections happen at the factory.
[30:39] So it's, it's not like we have to wait three days
[30:42] for an inspector to show up.
[30:43] There's just a lot of time savings
[30:46] and then more predictability for the finance institutions,
[30:50] more comfort for them.
[30:51] And then you get the lending that happens
[30:53] that sometimes is hard to quantify.
[30:56] But you know, one, one
[30:58] of the things we did in our workshop was we asked every
[31:01] discipline, whether you were a a, a banker,
[31:04] you were a realtor, you were this an architect, everybody,
[31:09] we said, what does your fee, what do, what do you add
[31:13] to the cost of housing?
[31:16] What does your profession add to it? It, it's amazing.
[31:21] The bricks and mortar aren't that much.
[31:23] There's a lot, there's a lot of fees that go into it.
[31:27] I'm not surprised. Well, as I I said this
[31:30] dovetails very nicely with many aspects
[31:33] of the changes we made
[31:34] to our zoning code about a year and a half ago.
[31:37] And I, I, at least for myself,
[31:40] would be very interested in seeing how the development
[31:43] of the pattern book proceeds.
[31:46] If there's as part of your process, there might be a way
[31:49] that we could try to include some patterns
[31:53] that would be appropriate for Pittsford
[31:54] that we think would a, a pass muster from our
[31:57] design review board.
[31:58] And I think this has great promise for us.
[32:01] The thank you and the,
[32:02] and the pattern book proposals were submitted yesterday.
[32:07] We have six from some pretty exciting firms.
[32:12] So that's still going.
[32:14] So there were six types
[32:16] of homes per like in the book, the pattern book.
[32:20] Are they prefab buildings on a slab?
[32:26] No, no.
[32:27] What we wanna start with is we just wanna start
[32:31] with the concept sketches.
[32:34] So we want, you know, roof lines, massing window patterns.
[32:38] We want to mimic houses that are in the village
[32:41] or around the town.
[32:43] And in fact we would probably like the town to tell us,
[32:48] you know, hey, this is quintessential Pittsford,
[32:52] this is quintessential around de QUT or whichever town.
[32:56] And then we'll make sure that those are,
[32:59] those design elements are incorporated into,
[33:03] we're gonna have single family duplex triplex
[33:07] up to an eight plex.
[33:09] But there's gonna be different.
[33:10] Yeah, I think you, there's six
[33:13] designers bidding to do the book.
[33:15] Oh, I'm sorry. The
[33:16] Book itself, we're expecting 25 to maybe 30. Yeah, we'll
[33:19] Different Designs to incorporate all these things
[33:20] that bill's talking about so
[33:22] that every town can have a little bit of flexibility
[33:25] and then you can adjust on your own
[33:28] after the basic designs are replaced. So
[33:30] What I was picking up on is
[33:32] inspections would happen at a factory.
[33:35] Yep. And then there would be a fast pass permit process.
[33:41] So long as you didn't go below the, the pad.
[33:45] Oh no. Okay, so it too much, too much jargon. Sorry.
[33:49] Yeah, it's, I'm not no on expert.
[33:52] No, I think
[33:54] In the instances we can streamline production
[33:57] that's attractive because UpSpring costs down
[33:59] and helps speed up the time from permit approval
[34:01] to people living in the home, which is good for everybody.
[34:04] Not everything is gonna be modular
[34:06] or penalized. That's just a piece of
[34:07] It.
[34:08] Yeah, that's a piece you mention that
[34:09] Because that's a great way to increase employment.
[34:12] You can build in the winter when we
[34:14] can't build out of the site.
[34:15] And then you can build these on site,
[34:17] you can put 'em together very quickly
[34:19] and they're high quality homes.
[34:20] Modular homes are high quality homes is not
[34:22] what we think about from the seventies
[34:23] and s So that's just one aspect of it.
[34:26] But my apologies, this
[34:28] Still will be an important business.
[34:29] Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Basements. Yeah.
[34:32] Stick regular furnaces. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
[34:36] Any other questions? Board members for our presenters?
[34:40] If none and gentlemen, thank you
[34:41] so much for bringing this in. You too.
[34:43] Question. Go ahead. Sorry, please. I mean, I'm just trying
[34:46] to put a story like how do I flow this?
[34:48] So, so you mentioned that Brighton, you, you presented this
[34:53] to Brighton and other towns.
[34:54] Has anybody else is constraint signing on
[34:58] Or Yeah, we have entire counties
[35:02] who are looking to join on.
[35:07] I'd say we're at least six at this point.
[35:09] Yeah. We've been having four small discussions.
[35:12] This is the first one town board presentation,
[35:14] but I've spoken to you about a dozen different towns.
[35:16] Ontario County is very aggressively trying
[35:19] to solve their housing crisis and,
[35:21] and many of the towns have signed on
[35:24] to support this in general.
[35:25] They want to see what the designs look like,
[35:27] but the concept of the town remains in control of
[35:30] what gets approved for this process.
[35:33] But once we get to that point, everything is streamlined
[35:36] and faster and is very appealing
[35:37] because it gets people in homes quicker,
[35:39] they start paying taxes more quickly, construction comes in
[35:42] and starts adding to the making back to the town.
[35:45] It's all positive.
[35:46] And these are designed
[35:47] to be built largely in Bill on vacant lots,
[35:50] which is another additional benefit.
[35:51] So the, the response has been very good waiting to see
[35:54] what the, the consultant we hire starts
[35:56] putting out for designs.
[35:57] And that'll be the next phase of more meetings like
[35:59] This.
[36:00] Has there been any modeling of what would be the, how,
[36:04] how would we impact the house prices
[36:07] once these houses are built?
[36:09] Meaning that right now Pittsford, if the,
[36:13] I think median house is getting sold at
[36:15] 500 K minimum, right?
[36:18] Once we, you put this up, how will that impact
[36:22] the median house rates?
[36:25] Was there any modeling done or any idea?
[36:27] I so that way we can
[36:29] Are you, you're, i you're you're saying
[36:35] what will be the impact if we're able
[36:37] to bring this in at a lower cost?
[36:39] Does that affect the property value,
[36:41] Property values, properties, Values?
[36:44] I have not. We have not done that.
[36:46] We have, that was our second lens was that economic modeling
[36:51] and what, what we want to do is
[36:55] we we're looking at economic modeling.
[36:57] I had not thought of that particular angle,
[37:01] but the economic modeling that, that we want
[37:04] to do is show you show towns
[37:08] what does infill development mean in the way
[37:12] of tax revenue generation on roads
[37:16] or on parcels that are already served
[37:18] by existing infrastructure.
[37:20] So now you're getting more revenue per acre.
[37:24] So what does that, how does that help you financially?
[37:27] That was more the, the model that we were looking at
[37:31] and which are the most productive land use models.
[37:35] We know, you know, the denser,
[37:37] the more mixed use are much more revenue generating
[37:41] and higher in revenue per acre tax revenue.
[37:45] When you get to the detached single family,
[37:48] that becomes more of a, a bit of a wash of, you know,
[37:53] how much revenue you're getting versus the cost
[37:55] of community services.
[37:57] We also want to examine that.
[37:59] Yeah, I think, I think that'll help your case much
[38:02] stronger if we are able to model that as well.
[38:04] Because I think there is two stories that you are telling.
[38:06] One story is that hey, there is going, I mean,
[38:10] for at 500,000 you still have
[38:13] to pay a certain amount of tax.
[38:14] The tax burden is going to come down
[38:16] and you're essentially replacing
[38:18] that lost in home value if there is one right.
[38:21] With that, with the tax burden register.
[38:24] So, so what I would, what I would suggest is as part
[38:28] of this, these documentation,
[38:29] if a modeling can be presented, we, it'll be helpful for us
[38:32] to have that discussions with our community members
[38:35] and saying, these are the plus
[38:36] and minuses of, of signing up with this. And so something,
[38:40] And if I may, part of my rationale,
[38:43] and this comes back from my preparation, is how can we
[38:47] as a community be fiscally responsible
[38:49] and be fiscally resilient as we move forward?
[38:54] You know, Pittsford values the services that we have,
[38:59] you know, and I think about our,
[39:00] our young adults in this community
[39:02] and about the reasonableness
[39:03] that they're gonna be able to have a home in the future.
[39:06] I think about my college students and whether
[39:07] or not they're gonna be able to afford a home,
[39:12] and I wonder if they think about that, if
[39:13] that's even something in their future,
[39:15] if you'll ever be able to purchase a home.
[39:17] I know a lot of college students are thinking
[39:19] that's not even part of their future
[39:21] to be able to purchase a home.
[39:23] Yeah. Add to that the,
[39:24] But I also wanna add to that, that as far
[39:26] as our fiscal responsibility
[39:29] and our responsibility to this town
[39:31] and to be resilient as a community, this is part of
[39:36] being responsible and thinking about using our resources
[39:40] and then that includes these parking lots that are empty
[39:46] and not being used to provide housing.
[39:50] And so, which can also provide
[39:54] feeding two birds with one hand, which is
[39:59] entry homes for people as well as revenue
[40:04] for our community to continue
[40:06] to provide the tax base that we need.
[40:08] So there's a lot of fiscal modeling that shows that,
[40:11] that this can work both for both.
[40:13] Yeah. And also we, we give one more demographic
[40:17] that is our seniors who have
[40:19] No Place what to go do you call one
[40:21] and a half acre lots.
[40:22] Right. And who want to downsize
[40:25] and they have no place to go.
[40:26] So I, there is value in this conversation.
[40:29] All I'm saying is that I think there is,
[40:33] you will be asked these questions and,
[40:35] and being ready with some sort of modeling, which explains
[40:40] the loss in
[40:44] how housing value versus the benefits
[40:47] of increased services and tax revenue.
[40:50] I think there is a really good story
[40:51] that you can put together and tell that story to,
[40:54] to win over some of these concerns as well.
[40:57] Can I just say I think this is a very different product
[41:00] than the typical home that's been built
[41:03] for the last 15 years.
[41:05] And, and that's the whole point is there isn't any
[41:08] of this type of form, the typical starter home
[41:10] isn't being built anymore.
[41:12] The only way to do that is through this process,
[41:15] it will fill a gap
[41:16] that will make the town more attractive to certain people.
[41:19] I think it actually ends up helping boost prices
[41:22] rather than dropping them.
[41:23] But absolutely good feedback. We'll
[41:25] At least maintain, at least maintain it.
[41:27] Yeah. Yes. It's not gonna reduce.
[41:29] Yeah. And and those were some of the concern,
[41:31] like Pro Smith said those were some
[41:34] of the concerns about new housing need
[41:36] or young needing housing or seniors needing housing
[41:40] because they have to downsize, they cannot
[41:43] maintain half an acre lotts or one acre lotts.
[41:46] It's a lot of burden for cleaning leaves and,
[41:49] and going long, right?
[41:51] So, so we, we,
[41:53] because of those conversations, we went with mixed zoning
[41:57] of the mono corridor.
[41:59] Yeah. We, we, we wrote our zoning laws
[42:01] or really rated our zoning laws
[42:04] to have our mono corridor be mixed zoning.
[42:06] What I'm, what I'm also interested is,
[42:09] are you having conversations with the landowners
[42:12] and property owners themselves to say
[42:15] there is these opportunities,
[42:16] would you be willing to sign up?
[42:17] Because it's been two and a half years
[42:19] that we signed off on mixed zoning on Monro Mon Corridor
[42:24] and we haven't had one developer,
[42:26] I don't know if developers been reaching out at dispenser's,
[42:29] not here, but I don't know if developers have been reaching
[42:32] out and saying, oh, we see coal mine here
[42:35] and we'll go build houses on top of Wegmans.
[42:38] We haven't had one conversation.
[42:39] So I'm curious also, like, are you having this conversation?
[42:43] Is there willingness to take out the parking lot situation
[42:47] that we are talking about and then build more housing there?
[42:50] I I've had a handful of conversations
[42:52] with very large developers who you would know
[42:56] who their first reaction is.
[42:58] I'm not sure that there's opportunity for me to do that.
[43:01] They don't know that towns are changing their zoning.
[43:04] They're interested, they understand that mixed use is good
[43:07] and they understand the need
[43:09] for senior housing in particular, close
[43:11] to services, close to transit.
[43:13] They're willing to look at it.
[43:15] We have to do a better job
[43:17] of telling them the opportunity is there
[43:19] and that the towns are willing to work with them.
[43:21] And I think there's at least three I've spoken
[43:23] with you would be very interested in that conversation.
[43:25] Yeah. From, from my perspective, I think,
[43:28] I think I was on the zoning,
[43:29] I was the zoning liaison also for zoning board.
[43:33] Now it's my clerk council member.
[43:35] Cur, I think there is a lot of willingness to
[43:40] move the permit timeline to much faster process.
[43:43] I ask anybody in our zoning board or
[43:47] or staff, everybody will tell you, yep, we are willing
[43:50] to move faster, but those opportunities need to be made.
[43:54] Right. But I want to make sure
[43:57] that you are having those conversations
[43:59] because we have enabled those
[44:03] policies two year, two and a half years
[44:05] or two years ago now,
[44:06] and we haven't heard from anybody that would be willing to
[44:11] create more housing here.
[44:13] One last thing I wanted to talk about Bill is that we,
[44:17] two years ago when we started having some
[44:19] of these conversations, there was only a thousand houses
[44:21] that we could build at a single family housing situation.
[44:26] Correct. The the la there was only,
[44:29] there was only enough land
[44:30] for a thousand more houses has then shifted from,
[44:33] Was that the number? Is that
[44:34] I think it, It, it, it sounds
[44:37] roughly speaking. Roughly
[44:38] Speaking, right?
[44:39] So we have roughly enough land for th it was two years ago.
[44:44] I don't know how much it is now.
[44:46] Maybe we've come down, we built 200 houses since those,
[44:49] The conventional single family homes, single,
[44:51] Conventional, single house, a big house, and
[44:52] a big lot convent.
[44:53] Okay. Right. So some of this infill
[44:56] that we are talking about there is if, if,
[45:01] if we are not able to sell that area, we'll run out of
[45:04] that infilled space for you to have these conversations.
[45:07] So I want to want you to think about that as well
[45:10] because it went from thousand to month, maybe 800 now
[45:13] and it sort not stopping building houses.
[45:16] We, we are hard market here, right?
[45:18] So, so something for you to think about as well as
[45:21] how fast do you want to move
[45:22] and how fast are you able to sell this idea
[45:24] because like council member Ang said
[45:29] we are in need of it,
[45:31] but we have to answer all these questions as well.
[45:35] Thank you.
[45:38] Other questions or comments folks?
[45:40] If not now, I will thank you for being with us tonight.
[45:43] Thank you for that. Thank you for the opportunity.
[45:44] Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.
[45:49] Thank you. Alright. Right.
[45:52] We will move on to legal matters.
[45:54] I will ask, is there anyone signed up to speak Thank you
[45:58] with respect to any of the legal matters there
[46:01] and I will ask town clerk,
[46:02] do we have any email comments on any of the legal matters?
[46:05] I have none. All right, then we can proceed.
[46:08] So we begin with the amendment to the incentive zoning
[46:11] for 150 French Road
[46:13] to permit the Lily Brook signage board you have
[46:16] before you a resolution to make that approval.
[46:19] Do we have any discussion or comment or questions?
[46:23] I, I had a follow up question from when
[46:26] we set the hearing.
[46:28] We were talking about the light that's at the bottom
[46:31] of the sign and we just,
[46:35] I think had a consensus, correct me if I'm wrong,
[46:37] that we would like to make sure that the sign complies
[46:41] with our current lighting requirements.
[46:44] I think I can speak to that. Yes, it does.
[46:49] What we, we don't allow in residential districts
[46:53] is in infill lighting that lighting from behind
[46:57] or glowing letters in it.
[47:00] But we do allow light to be cast directly from
[47:05] below what?
[47:06] Above, onto the sign to see it.
[47:09] That's a part of the, of the light
[47:14] of the sign regulations.
[47:16] I just discussed that upstairs with April Zaki
[47:21] and Doug Re's absence today.
[47:24] As I I understood that that might be a concern.
[47:30] Any other questions? If none, I will
[47:35] move that the application
[47:36] to amend the incentive zoning resolution covering the
[47:38] property at one 50 French Road
[47:40] to allow specific entrance signage,
[47:42] identifying both the Sisters of St.
[47:44] Joseph and friendly senior living, Lily Brook be approved
[47:47] as set forth in the written resolution that you have.
[47:50] I will second it. Mayor Curie? Yes. Hava Navar. Yes.
[47:56] KO Shakar. Yes. Set. LeBlanc? Yes. Smith?
[47:59] Yes. Thank you.
[48:02] And Tiffany, thank you for being with us from Lily Brook.
[48:07] We move on to the resolution
[48:09] and order for establishing the new refuse districts,
[48:14] the Alpine Ridge in which we had a speaker tonight
[48:17] and the extension to Wilshire Hill Board members.
[48:21] Any questions or discussion?
[48:25] If none, do we have a motion to approve?
[48:28] I move to approve the rough refuse districts.
[48:32] I will second it.
[48:36] R Yes.
[48:37] Havin Nabar? Yes. KO Shakar? Yes. Is Satler LeBlanc?
[48:41] Yes. Smith?
[48:42] Yes. Thank you.
[48:45] And we come to setting a public hearing for the
[48:51] veterans property tax exemption law.
[48:54] This, as you may recall from discussion at our last meeting,
[48:56] this is for fully disabled veterans.
[49:00] And I misspoke at the last meeting.
[49:02] I was under the impression at the time that we had
[49:04] to have actually voted on it by October 1st.
[49:08] I was incorrect. We have longer than that.
[49:11] So if we set our hearing
[49:13] for our next regular meeting on October 6th,
[49:16] we will have passed it in in sufficient time.
[49:21] Do we have a handle at all
[49:24] or an inkling of how we determine
[49:27] if somebody is totally disabled?
[49:30] I wanna be clear. I completely support the concept.
[49:34] I just wanna make sure it's done something we can execute.
[49:37] Yeah. Yeah. That's a that's a good question.
[49:39] And they actually, the state law requires
[49:42] that there be a specific letter be given by, from the State
[49:48] Veterans Bureau that's out there
[49:50] and they, so that's the way it's done.
[49:52] We, you can'ts not something that's up to us.
[49:55] You have to, and it can't just come in
[49:58] and say, I get a note from your doctor.
[50:00] You have to have a specific letter that, that is
[50:05] prescribed by state law to, to get
[50:07] In.
[50:08] Okay. Thank you. And at the time of the hearing,
[50:10] I I'm gonna be asking about what we think the cost
[50:13] to the town will be.
[50:17] Okay. I I I can try
[50:18] to give you a little pre look at that.
[50:24] Our assessor said that he thinks
[50:26] that this has the ability right now to,
[50:30] to involve a 45 seriously
[50:34] and permanently handicapped veterans.
[50:38] Okay. Thank you.
[50:44] Thank you. So do we have a
[50:45] motion to set the public hearing?
[50:47] I'll move Setting a public hearing for veterans tax
[50:52] property tax exemption law.
[50:56] I'll second. Yes. Hava Navar. Yes.
[51:00] Ko Shakar. Yes. Staler LeBlanc. Yes. Smith?
[51:05] Yes. Thank you. And that brings us to financial matters.
[51:10] I will ask you once again, do we have any public comments on
[51:12] any of the agenda items under financial matters?
[51:15] I have none. Okay, then we may proceed.
[51:18] We begin with surplus inventory.
[51:23] And I find myself explaining this a lot,
[51:26] but we have new people at every meeting
[51:28] and so I'd like them to know what we're doing
[51:30] and just as the Tom War must vote, with minor exceptions for
[51:35] to buy anything on behalf of the town,
[51:37] the Tom War also must vote to approve getting rid
[51:41] of property owned by the town.
[51:42] So when equipment comes to the end of its life
[51:45] and it's time to get rid of it
[51:46] or trade it in, it requires a vote of the town board.
[51:49] And that is the surplus inventory list that we are is
[51:52] before us now for approval.
[51:56] Questions. Board members?
[51:58] No. If done, I'll move approval
[52:01] of the surplus inventory.
[52:03] I'll second.
[52:08] Sorry. Uri? Yes. Hava. Navar? Yes. Ko Shakar? Yes.
[52:13] Is that lo LeBlanc? Yes. Smith.
[52:16] Yes. And that brings us to the vouchers.
[52:21] This is again for the benefit of our audience.
[52:23] This is over the town board goes over all the accounts
[52:27] payable and approves them so
[52:31] that the checks can be written and we can pay our bills.
[52:34] Questions board members about the vouchers.
[52:38] Two, two questions or related questions.
[52:40] One is on the additional accounts paper listing
[52:43] that we received today, page one there is a mention of
[52:50] a Volvo excavator with, with trade-in for 87,000.
[52:57] The, that was, you're asking about the
[52:59] Volvo excavator, correct?
[53:00] Yeah, that's just part of our yearly fleet
[53:03] replacement schedule.
[53:04] So that finally just came in.
[53:07] Okay. And and the tradein is, tradein was one
[53:11] of the surpluses that we
[53:12] Trade-in was the Yeah.
[53:13] And last few meetings, right? Correct. Okay.
[53:16] And also on the, on the
[53:21] accounts payable page number 52,
[53:27] Let me get there.
[53:28] Sorry, number is
[53:31] There, is excavator rental, I'm assuming
[53:36] for this, waiting for this, correct? No,
[53:39] We normally have, we normally have more
[53:44] projects going on than we have equipment.
[53:46] So typically each year we will do short term rentals,
[53:51] especially around excavators.
[53:53] So currently we are actually renting two
[53:55] excavators and we own two. So,
[53:59] Okay, So that's eight more thousand eight.
[54:01] Eight and half thousand more. Yeah.
[54:03] Yeah. Yep. But actually most cases
[54:07] that would be on the high side.
[54:08] Usually if we have to rent a machine, it's usually
[54:10] for just a couple weeks over the summer months.
[54:13] But with the, the sidewalk projects that we're undertaking,
[54:18] we're renting them for just a little bit longer than we
[54:21] would traditionally, but still far cheaper
[54:25] than purchasing.
[54:28] That was going to be my next question.
[54:29] Do you think it's value in adding more?
[54:32] No, it's, we're, we're probably at a,
[54:34] at a good point right now in terms of the, the amount
[54:36] of time that we rent versus what we own.
[54:39] Thank you Paul. I'm all set.
[54:43] Any other questions about the vouchers?
[54:46] If none, do we have a motion to approve? I move.
[54:50] I'll second Aie? Yes. Hava. Navar? Yes.
[54:55] KO Shakar? Yes. Satler LeBlanc. Yes. Smith?
[54:59] Yes. We do not have anything under Personnel matters.
[55:05] I do not have anything to bring up under other business.
[55:08] Does anyone else?
[55:11] I have one please. Just friends of Pittsford.
[55:14] It's a volunteer group helping with our Pittsford Library.
[55:18] Sorry, friends of Pittsford Library.
[55:19] Yeah, they're always looking for volunteers to help
[55:22] with book sales here.
[55:25] So I would wanted
[55:27] to make sure I made this public announcement.
[55:29] I think the friends of Pittsford Library, we're also going
[55:32] to reach out to our communications team to see if
[55:35] that can be posted on the, on the
[55:40] e-magazine as well.
[55:42] So anybody listening, if you're interested, reach, reach out
[55:46] and help our friends
[55:48] and friends of fit for library with their,
[55:52] with their book sales and events. Thank
[55:55] You.
[55:56] Okay, we'll get that into the e-news then. Perfect.
[55:57] Thank you. Anything else folks,
[55:59] before we go to public comment?
[56:01] I did have one thing. Please.
[56:02] For those that haven't already, our,
[56:04] our environmental board created a survey
[56:06] for our community climate action plan
[56:08] and it's on the front page of our of Our Town website.
[56:12] It'll be there until after the music fest this weekend.
[56:15] So if you haven't yet, go on and fill it out.
[56:17] Give us your ideas
[56:19] and thoughts on the different projects
[56:21] that would benefit Pittsford
[56:22] and we would greatly appreciate it. Thank
[56:25] You.
[56:26] Thank you for that reminder.
[56:28] If nothing else, we will move on to public comments.
[56:31] Do we have anyone signed up to comment? We do not.
[56:34] Do we have any email comments?
[56:36] I have none seeing no comments.
[56:39] We are at the end of our agenda
[56:40] and with thanks to everyone for coming tonight.
[56:43] We are adjourned. Thank you.